All That Glitters
by emmy m.d
Summary: What happens when some small town 60's kids find a strange box in a dried up lake? It's just like Mason's box...the one they put him in the ground in...


This is the first short story completely of my own creation (as in not based off of a show) that I have posted on here. Beware, I was reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner as I wrote this. I haven't decided if I like it or not yet. Give me your opinions. It's what I base my life on!

Haha...no disclaimer...this one IS mine!!

**0123456789876543210**

This story takes place in a small town in Georgia. It's the mid 60's in the farming country and it follows Ada and her siblings during a slightly crazy time. Ada's mother has left them and her twin brother Mason recently died in a plowing accident. The stress of these losses has left their father, Da, a little harder despite remarrying and having another little girl, Tacey.

**0123456789876543210**

"To China, to China! We're on our way to China!"

"No we ain't stupid! We're digging' for buried treasure. All this here land used to be covered in water. And water means pirates. And I reckon pirates means gold, don't it?"

I sat back on my log reading, reading, listening. The two little ones pecked at the dirt with plastic beach shovels, searching for something they'd never find. I just kept reading. Searching for a way out of this place.

"But Dickey, if all this used to be water how'd them pirates bury a treasure chest?"

"Aw shut up Tacey! You don't know nothing 'bout no pirates. You're just a girl. There never was a girl pirate so how would you know anything about how they hide their treasure?"

I smirked into the yellowing pages near my face. I was proud of how smart Tacey was getting on to be. Smart enough to be "just a girl" to Dickey. That boy just can't take being wrong, especially not if he gets caught by his younger sister. Tacey cut her eyes at him real nice before tossing down her shovel and coming to the log with me.

"Ada tell Dickey he's wrong. He don't know nothin', right Ada? Tell him!"

"Tace, he's right about one thing. This all was under water once, but it was just a big lake. Nothing large enough for pirates though."

"What would you know anyways? Always with your nose shut up in some book. How would you know anything 'bout anything? You can't learn nothing 'bout the world from no daggum book."

I just gave him a smile and let him keep on with his digging. I never minded watching the little ones. Other than some mild bickering over tiny things they were pretty good kids. Da had Dickey right fearful most times. And Tace liked to just sit with me more often than not. But Da was different nowadays. He was meaner to us all now, but he was right hard on Dickey ever since Mason got killed. And soon after Mama left, he had gone and remarried Tace's mama, Julie. She's alright I reckon. Just a bit green for my tastes. When Tace was born I was the only one who could quit her tears. Not even mother's milk would help any. But you can't just shove something down a babe's throat without a cry pushing it right back out. You have to let her choose it first.

"Dickey! Tacey! Come on, we have to go!" That's another Julie thing. She's taking them to the doctor down the road again. More booster shots. Da never took Mason or me to get shot up so much. Dickey neither til Julie waltzed in. Good thing I'm big enough. She doesn't try to take me to get any silly shots. Now I can be alone. Tace hugs me and they run off. They get suckers soon. They know it.

"Bye Ada. Watch our hole for us. Ya know? So No Body takes our gold." Fists shoved deep in his pockets, Dickey began to trudge up the dry lake walls. Hunched backs step off the edge of the horizon and I stand. I jump off the log and land in the middle of a yellow-orange dust cloud. Glancing about I head for the hammock we hung over the creek a ways down from here. Before leaving, a thought knocked upon my shoulder. Tossing the little shovels into the hole, something made me turn around. Stepping, stepping tentatively to the edge of their hole, I toe a bit of gravelly dirt in. A hollow thump snuck out of the hole and stomped its way to my ears drums. There was something there. Something there, some thing there. They had gotten farther than I thought. I was wrong, wrong. I put one bare foot timidly in the bottom of the hole as if it would fall out and I would go straight through the center of the earth and hit my head on the Great Wall. Cool dirt and something else that I did not know. I use my pocket knife to chip away some of the rocks and I'm scraping. Scraping with the shovel. Tacey's pink plastic shovel that she used to build sandcastles at the beach last summer. I know, I helped. Scraping and scraping and I have a splinter and I rip it out. Kneeling in the hole I scrape dig scratch dig scratch scrape. Something, some thing I do not know and I was searching. I was wrong. Splinter's bleeding. Wood. There's wood in the ground. It shouldn't be here, the lake is gone or I would be drowning right now. Dry lake, dry dirt, dry wood. My lips are dry but wet, wet blood. It's a box. A long, long box. Box? I chip away at the clods of dirt and old fish bones. Bugs fall down and tried to find somewhere to hide. No where, no where. No place to go. They're getting roasted, roasted by the hot sun on their cold backs and I'm bleeding and there's no water. This box. Blood on it! Drips crimson drops. And I was wrong.

"Dickey look! Ada's helping us dig for gold!" Tacey is running down the hill for me. Towards me. She can't see It. It's bloody.

"There's no gold Tacey. There's no gold." Dickey stands there at the top of the hill. Fists in his pockets. He knows. He saw, he knows.

"Go back Tacey! Go on home now. There's no gold here." Tacey stopped and I'm careful to keep my hands down. She can't see it. She is stopped but she isn't going back to the house. She knew something was up. It was happening. She'll be mad I'm hiding some thing. She'll be sad. Silent treatment for me I'm sure. Or she'll hide a book of mine. She'll get over it, be over it, be over, blood. Tears big enough to fill this whole god damned hell hole of a like cling precariously to her long naturally curled lashes. Whirling about she stomps off to play. play. god god god. Play god. play. God play. And I'm chipping away. Scratching. No gold, just blood. Gold blood. It's a long box. Dry blood.

"What is it Ada? What's in it?" Dickey whispered under his breath. He could look. He's seen blood before. He was there. He's standing at the edge of the hole. Right. Where I had kicked in the dirt.

"I don't know Dickey. Not gold. No gold."

"It looks like Mason's box. What they put him in the ground in. He...he ain't in there is he?" I could smell vomit on his breath. He swallowed it down. It was the first time he spoke about Mason since he pushed him out of the way of that electric plow. Dry blood, dry dirt. Wet wet splinter. Wet cheeks. Whet.

"He ain't in there Dickey. Remember? We were there. We saw his box get buried at the cemetery. We saw it. Remember? I saw it. I saw." Blood.

"Should we take it out?" Dickey didn't want to. I could tell. Mason's was the only one he ever saw. Mama ran off, he didn't see hers. He saw Mason's though. He thought Mason was in it. But it's dirty. Bloody dirty.

"I will Dickey. You go. There's no gold. Go back to the house. Play with Tacey." He turned, started to go, stopped, came back to the hole. Came back, came back, come back, Mason's gone, Blood. Dickey laid down on his belly like a snake. Hopping out of the hole off the wood I laid down like him. Two snakes reaching arms down into the hole. Into the earth. Searching. Dragging the past out of its dusty blood marked tombs into the harsh light of day. Hands down in the ridges on either side of the box. Reaching, reaching. Blood. Sand in my splinter. Ugly dryness. I saw. I know. We're snakes. Pulling, coiling, reaching, pulling. We haul it out. We haul out the box and set it out of the hole. It was a long box. Sides damp from deep earth.

"Dickey. Why'd you dig right there?" My voice is sturdy and strong but I'm shaking real bad. I know what it is. What It is. I just don't know who. Dickey thinks he knows. But he's only seen the one. But he's seen Blood.

"There was a hollow spot. A dip. Like someone took out all the dirt and couldn't fit it all back in the hole. I figured it had to be where them pirates buried their treasure."

"What color was it Dickey? The dirt on top?" My nostrils flare as it pushes on the back of my throat. I get that hot spit and the back of my jaw starts to tingle. He'll smell it on my breath too.

"Same as the rest around it." He spoke softly, like he would wake it up if he was too loud. Mason never liked getting woke up.

"It won't no darker? Not even a shade?" I questioned him without trying to frighten him. He shook his head, no. No, no. No where. But it was every where. All the wheres. Remember Dickey? Was it dark? What color was it that you saw?

"It won't dark." He's gonna cry. Course it won't dark. It was the middle of the day. High noon. But not in the middle. A little off to the side. Middle would have been safer. But he was a little off. Just a bit. Just enough. Enough. Fingers like buzzards. Pecking at my splinter. Tearing. Ripping. Buzzards. Pecking at torn dead flesh. Five little buzzards. My buzzards. Dryness.

With what Dickey said about the hollow...it had been long enough for it to look all the same, but not long enough for nature to take its course and even out the earth. Enough. I picked too much. Tore off a piece of dead flesh and threw it away. 'Tis better to give and so He gives. Gives flesh, takes flesh. Evens out I suppose. Even Enough.

"Dickey. I'm going to open this box. If you don't wanna be here run off now. Go on back home and forget. We may be in trouble." I remember something about some grave robbers doing jail time up in Saxapahaw. But this wasn't really a grave. And we weren't taking nothing from it. Besides, Mason's was bigger. Dickey just stood there. Gaping like some of them old fish bones I saw when I got my splinter. Dickey just stood there. I put my hands on the box top. All of the sudden I wanted to run and get away. I didn't wanna be here! I had to run...but I didn't. I didn't because I couldn't. I had to but I couldn't. Dickey wouldn't if I did it. But we were in too deep now.

"Dickey. Run get me a hammer or a crowbar or something. Don't say nothing about this box to anyone. You understand?" Nodding with his gaping fish mouth he ran off. Blood. Wiped some off on my shirt. Looking real close at the wood. Touching with my hand and I feel dampness. Blood and ground water made the wood soft. Really soft. Running my hands over the edge I count the nail heads. One, two, three...seven. Not very many. Tiny box though. One at each point two on the sides. Soaked in blood.

"Ada..." Raised my head and saw him. Grabbing my arm at the elbow he jerked me across the hole. My feet were still on the other side with the box so I sank to my knees.

"What are you doing?! Ada! What...where...You're bleeding!"

I apologize, apologize. But he's busy talking. He sneaks a look at It but tries to focus on my wrist. Must have scratched it on a fish bone or the shovel tip. They're sharp for plastic beach toys. No that's not right I say. It's not right. It was a splinter. Tore off a big piece of me. Snagged on the box and I lost it in the ground some Where. I'm starting to not remember. Seems so long ago. But I saw it so I know. There's too much blood to see my finger nails. But I lost it some where. And then I'm inside and he carried me but I didn't lose it here. I lost it out there. He's babbling about the box on the phone to someone and he's giving our address and I don't understand. Too much blood to understand. I'm swimming in crimson and it's stained my pretty white shirt. Dickey and Tace are in the doorway and I'm on a couch or a bed. Or I'm in a box and I don't want to be. I lift my corpse and go to the bathroom, the bedroom. Any where but the box and I can't. There's no where and my feet are still out with the box. I can't go any where and I feel Tace's cold hands on my face and she's looking and screaming and crying and screaming outside. I look down, away and there are things there. White and red things with chickens on them from the kitchen tied around my wrist. My left wrist, not the one with my turquoise bracelet and I lost it. It's down with my feet at the box and there's red in the window. It's filling the dirty glass and filters through the yellowed lace curtains and played on my face and it's back. And I'm seeing it again because I saw it the first time. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. Makes my eyes hurt. I wish they had stayed by the box too. Some men in uniforms and matching hats came in and lifted me up. Up onto a skinny bed. I'm Alice in the Looking Glass. Bloody Alice. Bloody Ada. Ada! Ada! Tace is screaming and Dickey is gaping and Da is babbling and the men are lifting and I am Alice in the Looking Glass and I don't know myself. But Tace has seen it now. So she knows myself. Julie is at work by now but where is Mason? Where is my Mason, my brother? It's soon time for our birthday and he isn't home. Where is my mother? And I am Alice. The white things on my wrist are all red now. Red like the window, red like the blood. I wonder where my knife is. I could cut off the red chickens. It makes my wrist hurt. That knife was Mason's. He'll be mad if I lost it. But no. It's down by the box I'm sure of it. I dug so much. I'm tired now. I think I'll go to sleep.

**0123456789876543210**

They think I'm crazy. They think since I saw it and Mason's and I accidentally dug too deep that I'm crazy. The box turned out to be from a long time ago. A little girls. A storm hit as they tried to cross the lake and they lost her off the boat I suppose. They're calling her "Ada's Girl" until they found out any thing. I wish they wouldn't. Julie and Dad are making us move. Well. Making the four of them more closer to me. It's because of "Ada's Girl" and my accident. It's because they think I'm crazy. No more lake for them I suppose. Dry or otherwise. But I'm not crazy. Right Mason?

"Right Ada. You're not Crazy."

**0123456789876543210**


End file.
